Improvement in bleaching wool



.wus wATTEA-u. V Process for Bleaching Wool.

N0. bl-21,564. Patemed Dec.5,1871, 1/

IAQ/limon. 1 /e/@M/Jzzw 'that the wall of wool formed UNITED STATES JULES WATTEAU, 0F ANTWERP, BELGIUM.

IMPROVEMENT IN BLEACHING WOOL.

Specification forming part of Letters Patent No. 121,564, dated December 5, 1871.

To all whom it may concern:

Be it known that I, JULES WATTEAU, of Antwerp, in Belgium, have invented a new and useful Process in Bleaching Wool, of which the following' is a specification:

In the drawing, Figure l is aI front eleva-tion of the apparatus Iem ploy to carry out my invention. Fig. 2 is a plan, with the devices for revolving the basket of the centrifugal machine omitted.

A is the outer casing of a centrifugal machine such as is ordinarily used for drying Wool, the basket within beingrevolved as usual by the shaft, s, wheels 'w and 1v, and pulley a'. B is a small I sheet-iron stove having a slide, a, as shown. The

stove has a funnel, b, by which it communicates Wit-h the basket of the centrifugal through the cover x of the-casing. This casing is of wood and may be hermetically closed, its cover being made in sections, as shown, one section sliding above another. Within the stove there is placed a sheet-iron vessel containing sulphur, the burning of which is regulated by the slide a.

I charge the basket of the centrifugal with Wool,hand1ingit as softly as possible in order upon the interior of the basket by the action of the centrifugal machine may be even throughout. The sulphur is then lighted, and the centrifugal being' set in Imotion the draught created thereby causes the sulphur to burn freely in the stove, and the sulphurous acid to pass over into the centrifugal,

whence it is expelled by the rapid revolution of the basket, passing through the wool and the peribrations of the basket in the same manner as liquids used in centrifugals for similar purposes, and finally escaping' through the pipe p.

Another mechanical contrivance, though not just described,

ber, such as is often used for drying Wool, having,

it is necessary that it should be previously Wellv Washed.

Other bleaching gas than sulphurous acid may be prepared in any ordinary manner and passed through the wool as above described; though I iind sulphurous acid to be the best for this process.

My invention saves one handling of the wool, whether the centrifugal is used or the other device above described, forthe woolmay bebleached in the same machine in which it is dried.

Asphaltum varnish will protect the stove and other apparatus from the action of the sulphurous acid.

I cla-im- The method herein described of bleaching Wool by the application of a suitable bleachinggas to it by means of atmospheric pressure obtained by an exhausting or condensing fan or centrifugal machine, substantially in the inanner described.

J. WATTEAU.

Witnesses CH. VAN LLEBERGEN, 

